Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to
a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
This sonnet is considered to be the
most famous of all the sonnets written by William Shakespeare. The poet appreciates
someone, who is not clearly mentioned in the poem.
Shall
I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
The sonnet opens abruptly with a
rhetorical question ‘Shall I
compare thee to a summer’s day?’
The next line
‘Thou art more lovely and temperate’ seems to be directly addressed to the
person who is being appreciated in such a unique manner.
The poet is not taking any permission
from the person addressed to, but it may be that the poet poses this question
to himself just to give conversational tone to the opening of the sonnet. He
thinks to compare his beloved (male or female) to a ‘summer’s day. In England,
summer season comes for a very short time. One can notice beautiful flowers
blooming around. So the poet desires to compare his beloved to a beautiful
summer day. But then, suddenly, the poet changes his mind and declares ‘Thou
art more lovely and more temperate: ‘
It means that the beautiful summer day
has no comparison with his beloved because he/she is more lovely and temperate
than a summer day. The use of the word temperate signifies ‘balanced’ or
constant in nature.
In the next lines, the poet proceeds
to prove as to how the summer’s day is unpredictable and not constant as the
beauty of his beloved is.
Rough
winds do shake the darling buds of May,
First, rough or strong winds start blowing all of a sudden and they shake off the lovely buds from the plants. Thus the beauty and loveliness of the summer day is ruined by the fast blowing winds.
First, rough or strong winds start blowing all of a sudden and they shake off the lovely buds from the plants. Thus the beauty and loveliness of the summer day is ruined by the fast blowing winds.
And
summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Second, the summer season is
short-lived. As we know, summer season provides respite from the chilly weather
conditions prevailing there in the whole region. It is like spring season which
we enjoy in our country. Thus the poet adds second contrasting feature of the
summer day.
Sometime
too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
Third, sometimes it so happens that
the sun shines too much brightly in the sky. The poet calls the sun ‘the eye of
heaven’. Here, we find personification of the sky and the sun has been used as
a metaphor to intensify the effect of the heat on the earth and all the
creatures on it. In simple words, we may say that though the summer days are
very beautiful in England but their beauty and loveliness is sometimes marred
by the heat of the sun. On the other hand, the loveliness of his beloved
doesn’t have such limitation.
And
often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
In the above line, the poet keeps on describing
the summer day’s limitations. He says that very often the golden complexion of
the summer day is dimmed when the clouds overcast the sky and the sun is hidden
behind them. We must note here that the poet has also personified the summer
day having loveliness and beauty on his face. That’s why, he uses the pronoun
‘his’ in the above line. If we assume that the poet means to say the sun’s
golden complexion, it does not establish connection to the main thread of the
meaning. The reason is that the poet has called the sun ‘the eye of heaven’. In
spring season, the sun is usually mild and its rays make the face of the earth
with all its beauty golden. But the poet says that the summer’s day, which is
often golden due to the mild rays of the sun, is sometimes dimmed when there
are clouds in the sky. We may also suppose that the sky is dimmed when the
clouds hide the sun behind them. Thus the poet proves his point that the
loveliness of a summer’s day is transitory.
And
every fair from fair sometime declines,
After describing the dimming effect on
the summer’s day, the poet proceeds to lay emphasis on the transitory nature of
physical beauty on the earth. Beauty of every object on the earth fades with
the passage of time.
By chance or nature’s changing
course untrimm’d;
The reason behind this ruinous nature
of Time is by chance or it may be the unaltered plan of Nature.
But
thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
After creating a bitter contrast by describing the limitations of the summer’s day, the poet comes to the point. Now he says what he really wanted to say. He says that his beloved loveliness shall never fade. He calls it eternal. His friend will also never lose the qualities that he/she possesses. The poet further points out that Death shall also have no effect on his beloved, who will remain eternal in his verses.
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
After creating a bitter contrast by describing the limitations of the summer’s day, the poet comes to the point. Now he says what he really wanted to say. He says that his beloved loveliness shall never fade. He calls it eternal. His friend will also never lose the qualities that he/she possesses. The poet further points out that Death shall also have no effect on his beloved, who will remain eternal in his verses.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can
see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
He further clarifies the thought of
making his beloved above the ravaging effect of Time and Death. He says that
his verses and his beloved shall remain in the hearts of human beings till they
live on the earth. The people shall keep on reading and enjoying his verses
and, thus, his beloved shall also be living in his lines.
